Garden of Secrets Past

THIRTY-EIGHT


Bourne End, ten days later

It was an agreeable summer’s day at Andrew’s house. All morning the sun had been playing cat and mouse, dodging in and out of the white clouds, but had finally gained the upper hand and since noon the temperature had crept up to the low eighties.

Since Kingston had arrived at eleven, he and Andrew had been sitting on the terrace with drinks, talking, of all things, about the Sturminster case. Oddly, though, it was as if each would prefer to discuss something else. Andrew, more than Kingston, had made a couple of creditable efforts to change the topic only to have the conversation eventually wind back, as if tugged by an inexorable external force, to where they’d begun. Though they’d been talking about the case on and off for the last ten days, it seemed that there was always another recollection, another revelation, and more questions arose constantly, some with no cut-and-dried answers.

Only in the last couple of days had the murders slipped from the front pages of the nation’s newspapers and from the TV headlines. To the best of Kingston’s knowledge, Vanessa Carlson was still in the hospital recovering from the internal injuries and broken bones caused by Kingston’s punishing blow. Wheatley had told him that they’d run a check on her mobile and home phones. Billing records listed dozens of calls between her and Crawford in the last six weeks.

In light of the overwhelming evidence, both Simon Crawford and Vanessa Carlson had confessed to and been charged with the murder of Tristan Veitch and the attempted murder of Lawrence Kingston. Francis Morley, who had also confessed, had been charged with being an accessory in both the murder of Veitch and the attempt on Kingston’s life. All had been arraigned and were in jail awaiting preliminary hearings.

“Are you getting hungry?” asked Andrew, after Kingston declined a second gin and tonic.

“I am. Knowing your inclination for—shall we say—generous helpings and courses, I had only tea and one slice of toast for breakfast. Were you able to get the wild salmon, by the way?”

“Of course. Flown down from Scotland yesterday.”

Andrew picked up the empty glasses and started for the kitchen. “Why don’t you camp out here while I get things started. Give me about ten minutes. There’re some new magazines in the rack over there.”

“Sure I can’t help?”

“You’ve been ordered to relax,” Andrew said over his shoulder.

Kingston was engrossed in a Gardens Illustrated article about Harold Peto’s Italianate garden at Iford Manor when he thought he heard the faint ring of the doorbell. He thought nothing of it until he heard voices. He looked up to see Andrew step onto the terrace. He had a wide grin on his face. “Someone here to see you, Lawrence.”

Kingston was, bewildered. As far as he knew, not a soul knew he was at Bourne End.

“Hello, Lawrence,” said Amanda, smiling, as she joined them on the terrace.

For a fleeting moment he was lost for words as he rose from his wicker chair. She looked lovely: the white linen dress, the straw hat, her wide-set sparkling eyes and winsome smile. “Well, I’ll be—!” he sputtered. “What a wonderful surprise.”

“It was Andrew’s idea,” she said.

“Please sit down,” said Kingston, smoothing the tablecloth unnecessarily as a way of giving himself a few extra moments to think. Seeing Amanda was like a ray of sunshine, but now an unwelcome cloud was moving in, already casting a shadow over what, for him, had been a joyful moment.

“I’ll get you a drink, Amanda,” said Andrew. “What would you like?”

“Something bubbly would be super, if you have it?”

“Absolutely. Well, I’ll leave you two alone for a moment,” said Andrew, departing.

As they were talking, Kingston had been thinking hard. Several days had passed since he’d last talked to Inspector Wheatley. Among the many things they’d discussed related to the case, Kingston had explained his theory about William Endicott’s death, which understandably had taken a backseat following the headline-grabbing events at Sturminster. As for Amanda, he’d only talked to her twice—once from the hospital, a call cut short by the nurse, and again a couple of days later, so he had no idea how much she knew about the most recent developments.

By now Wheatley would have called to tell her that she was no longer a suspect in Tristan’s death. As a point of courtesy alone he would have surely done that, given his punctiliousness. This prompted Kingston to wonder whether Wheatley had also broached the subject of Endicott’s murder. Suddenly, with Amanda sitting there, it had become important for Kingston to know the answer to that question.

In one of his several conversations with the inspector in the days following the incidents at Sturminster and at the hospital, Wheatley had told him that Crawford, Morley, and Vanessa Carslon had all sworn in their respective interviews that they had nothing to do with Endicott’s murder. Wheatley had expressed doubt, but it fitted with Kingston’s theory: that Endicott had been their pipeline to Veitch’s activities, and the last thing the three of them would want would be for him to be silenced. Kingston had been harboring a suspicion as to who had killed Endicott for some time. He’d even ventured that opinion to Morley early on. In the past weeks he’d gone over it at least a half dozen times and kept coming back to the same answer—it must have been Veitch. When he’d told the inspector this, a long silence had followed. He’d taken it to indicate that the police hadn’t considered that possibility, which he found surprising. In their conversation he’d been careful not to say “murdered” because it was more self-serving to think that Endicott had been killed accidentally during a struggle and not with premeditation. For Amanda’s sake, Kingston would naturally prefer that to be the case.

Kingston’s rationale was straightforward: Early in his research Veitch had told Endicott about his suspicions and growing certitude about wrongdoings at Sturminster, and the more Endicott learned, the more intrigued he became in the project. Endicott was still infatuated with Vanesssa Carlson, whom he’d met at the garden club. Though theirs was probably an on-and-off relationship, Endicott made the mistake of mentioning to her that he was helping Veitch, telling her what they were working on. Unbeknownst to Endicott, she was dating Simon Crawford and—as she had since admitted under oath—had been for some time. As Endicott learned more, so did Crawford, and he eventually told Morley about Veitch’s discovery. Unlike Crawford, whose main interest was the hidden money, Morley’s concerns were twofold: finding the money for himself and Crawford and preventing the information from becoming public, which would result in irreparable damage to the family name and to Sturminster. It could spell the end of the dynasty and the entire estate.

When Veitch got his hands on the Winterborne code from Llewellyn-Jones, it was a huge break, but it also created a new problem: He needed someone he could trust to decode it. Though he might not have known to begin with, it was a fortunate stroke of serendipity when he learned of Endicott’s cryptography skills. With Endicott’s expanded role and growing realization that Veitch was really on to something and the vast amount of money that could be at stake, he figured that he should be entitled to a generous share of the proceeds. If he could crack the codes, he was certain that it would lead them to the money.

Kingston’s theory was that Endicott had given Veitch an either-or proposition: Cut him in for a sizable share or he would go to Morley and tell him everything. Exactly what happened next would, most likely, never be known. But a terrified Veitch had a body on his hands and had to dispose of it. As a historian, he knew everything there was to know about Sturminster. That included not only the Arcadian monument and its mysterious unsolved da Vinci–like inscription, but also the pathways and tiny dirt roads. Linking Endicott’s death to Sturminster by dumping his body close to the Arcadian monument was a devious move. To make it appear even more related, Veitch scribbled a few letters on a piece of paper, ripped it in half, and placed the written part in Endicott’s pocket. It achieved its intended purpose: to raise all kinds of speculation of more sinister implications.

Kingston had met Veitch once and only briefly, but having learned more about him—how he thought, what he’d discovered, and how potentially hazardous that information might be—it was just the kind of thing he would have done faced with the horror of knowing that he’d killed a friend and could never prove it was an accident. In a perverse way, it was almost admirable. If he did become a suspect and the accusation of blackmail surfaced, he knew that it could be tantamount to a murder conviction.

Kingston looked at Amanda, realizing that he’d better say something intelligent soon or she could start to think that his injury and harrowing experience had somehow impaired his mental state. He was glad when she spoke first.

“How are you feeling?”

“Quite well, all things considered. Healing faster than I’d hoped for—actually, more a bruised ego and embarrassment than anything else. How about you?”

“I’m managing to come to grips with it, and sleeping more than three or four hours a night for the first time since the day Tristan died. I still find it impossible to believe everything that’s happened, though.”

Kingston knew that the polite conversation couldn’t last. One way or another, lingering questions had to be asked and answered by both of them. “Did you hear from Inspector Wheatley?” he asked without ceremony.

“I did. Yes. He called when you were in the hospital. He told me what had happened. He said that the Carlson woman had confessed to poisoning Tristan and that I was no longer a suspect. I can’t describe what a relief that was. He also told me briefly how she did it. Unknown to me, Carlson and Tristan knew each other through the garden club. According to her statement, it was something of a surprise to Tristan when Carlson had called, because they hadn’t been in contact for a long time. She told him that she had revealing information about Sturminster’s missing money and arranged to meet him at a pub not far from Abbot’s Broomfield. Apparently, she slipped the aconitine into his drink with an eyedropper. It helped that Tristan had ordered whisky, which made the poisonous tincture undetectable. She claimed that she hadn’t meant to kill Tristan, only to give him enough poison to require hospitalization. Their intent was to get both of us out of the house so they could steal all of Tristan’s papers, everything he’d discovered.”

“A likely story.”

Amanda nodded. “One more thing. The inspector said that Carlson has nursing credentials and once worked at a hospital in Coventry.”

“That would explain a lot.”

“Inspector Wheatley even apologized for the anguish that he knew it must have caused me—being a suspect. He was actually nice for a change.”

“Anything else?”

She brushed her fingers across one eye. “You mean his and your theory about Tristan having killed William Endicott?”

Kingston wished he could be somewhere else. “It’s only an educated guess,” he said, “but we both thought it important that you should know about it. If it were to be proved later that that’s what happened, it would come as less of a shock. Not to dismiss or make light of it, but I believe that when all’s said and done, Endicott’s death will remain unsolved and soon forgotten, overshadowed by the other, far more sensational crimes. I seriously doubt Tristan’s name will ever appear in the newspaper, other than as the historian who laid bare Sturminster’s secrets.”

“You’re a clever man, Lawrence—thoughtful too, even if a little headstrong,” she said, smiling quixotically. “The way you explain it, I almost believe you. Don’t worry, though, I’m learning to live with lots of stressful things these days. You, too, I imagine. I think I can handle it, if that’s what concerns you.”

Kingston was about to reply when Andrew arrived with the champagne.

“Sorry it took so long, but I’m sure you two weren’t lacking for things to talk about. Perhaps you’d do the honors, Lawrence, while I finish in the kitchen,” he said, putting the ice bucket and glasses on the table and departing.

Kingston poured them each a glass of Veuve Clicquot and they continued discussing the Sturminster case. About five minutes or so later Andrew reappeared announcing that lunch was finally ready in the dining room.

Throughout the meal, Kingston and Amanda were content to let Andrew do much of the talking. It was almost as if, left out of the early conversation, he was determined to make up for it. By now he was privy to most of the details of the Sturminster case, but Kingston was impressed by some of Andrew’s questions. Clearly he’d absorbed a lot more information than Kingston had given him credit for.

“I’m curious, Lawrence,” said Andrew, sipping his wine. “Did you ever figure out who was shadowing you? Was it Morley’s people?”

“You mean the man on the King’s Road and the one in the BMW?”

“Right.”

“They were Wheatley’s tails. He told me that with the case at a standstill, it might be a good idea to know where I was going and whom I was talking to. That’s how he knew I’d gone to see Dorothy Endicott, among other things.”

“And what about the gold horseshoe, the one Lytton gave you?”

“What do you mean?”

“How come Julian Heywood had one in his drawer? You’d said that he and his father-in-law were not on speaking terms.”

“Ah, yes. For a while I thought there might be a connection between Julian Heywood and Bryce Lytton, that they might be involved somehow in Endicott’s murder. It really made no sense, but I eventually called Julian and asked him how he came by the horseshoe. Apparently his mother had given it to him years ago. That’s all there was to it.”

Soon the conversation drifted to more pleasant matters: Amanda admiring Andrew’s Georgian house, commenting on the furniture, décor, and the garden, wanting to know more about it. Andrew was only too glad to oblige, launching into a lengthy explanation of its history: built for a famous Shakespearian actor around the mid-nineteenth century and the garden laid out much later by a theater-set designer. He finished by giving Kingston most of the credit for the way the garden looked today.

Some forty minutes later they’d finished Andrew’s sherry trifle and were having coffee when Kingston seized the conversation in a rather unexpected way.

“I hesitate to bring up Sturminster again,” he said, “but with everyone, including myself, naturally focused on the events and crimes of the present, we’ve tended to overlook the past. We shouldn’t forget that it was what actually took place at Sturminster two hundred and sixty years ago that got Tristan interested in the first place.”

Andrew frowned. “I’m not sure that I’m following you. Hasn’t the, quote, ‘Sturminster legend’ been laid to rest? Don’t we now have a pretty good idea of what happened in those days?”

“I believe we still have only partial knowledge. I could be wrong, and I hope I am, but in the coming weeks the nation will be shocked again when it’s revealed what else might have happened back then. It’s incomprehensible how it’s remained such a guarded secret all these centuries and it also provides a clearer understanding of why Samuel Morley went to such lengths with the complicated secret codes to protect his ill-gotten fortune and other crimes.”

Andrew shrugged and glanced at Amanda. “He does this occasionally. It’s the professor coming out.”

Kingston ignored the flip comment. “I’ll explain,” he said. “It was something that Tristan said that day at the hospital that stuck with me. He talked about ‘damning information’ and ‘heinous crimes.’ It took me time to realize that while we were focusing on the hidden cache of money, there could be another, more macabre, secret that Samuel Morley had to live with—”

Amanda interrupted. “The ‘heinous crimes’ part?”

“Exactly. And ‘guilt-ridden bricks.’”

“That was a clever play on words,” said Andrew.

Kingston nodded. “Lying in that underground room, after I’d noticed the gold inside the brick, I started thinking: How could Morley have built the room under the temple without others knowing that the bricks were filled with gold ingots, if indeed they all are?”

“Are you talking about the workers, the bricklayers?” asked Amanda.

“Mostly. There was someone else, too—a man who played a big part in Morley’s grand design for Sturminster. The man who had designed and overseen construction of his monuments and had undoubtedly helped construct the room under the temple before the temple was built—Matthew Seward, the architect.”

Andrew looked confused. “Where is all this going?”

“I’m getting to that.” Kingston glanced about the terrace while gathering his thoughts. “Oxbridge-Bell’s book on the history of Sturminster gives passing reference to certain deaths on and around the estate during the period in question, oddly enough all male. Though lacking specifics, the author concluded that most were either accidental or job related—no mention of homicides. What is more telling, however, is a single paragraph concerning Matthew Seward. It states that Seward disappeared soon after he’d completed Sturminster’s monuments, and no reports of his death have ever been presented or recorded. He simply disappeared. One explanation offered was that Seward had traveled often to various parts of Europe and the Middle East, and it has been speculated that he might have died while on one of these journeys.”

“So what are you getting at?” Andrew frowned.

“I’m suggesting that when the time comes to dismantle the room under the temple to find out exactly how much gold it contains, further excavation will reveal that it also served as the tomb of one or more workers and possibly Matthew Seward.” He paused, as if to underline the gravity of what he’d proposed. “I believe that’s what Tristan had in mind when he said ‘heinous crimes.’”

Amanda grimaced. “You’re saying that they knew too much and had to be … silenced?”

“Either that or they’d resorted to blackmailing Morley. If you think about it, he’d have had little choice—a fortune amassed over several decades was buried under that temple.”

“Grisly. The tabloids are going to have a field day with that,” said Andrew.

Kingston nodded. “They will, I’m sure. And you know what? I wouldn’t be at all surprised as the days pass if even more transgressions surface, when the tattered pages of Sturminster’s sordid past come under closer scrutiny.”

“I trust you won’t be part of that inquiry, Lawrence,” said Amanda.

“Not on your life. I’m done with it.”

“Then let’s talk about something else.”

“How about more coffee?” Andrew interjected.

Amanda said yes. Kingston declined, and Andrew left for the kitchen.

Alone again, a silence fell between them, as if each was waiting for the other to say something first. Finally Amanda spoke.

“I’ve been making quite a few changes to the house,” she said. “I’ve cleaned out Tristan’s office and painted it, and I may get the floor refinished. I’m also getting rid of a lot of stuff.” She paused, fingering the string of amber beads resting on her blouse. “I was thinking it might be … well, I wondered if you’d like to come up to Stafford again. There are two things in particular that I wanted to tell you about.”

He smiled. “You make it sound quite mysterious.”

“I had planned to surprise you, but I see no reason why you shouldn’t know now.” She stopped fidgeting with the beads and dropped her hands into her lap. “The first is the wine cellar.” After a pause, she went on, her voice more upbeat. “I’ve really no need for it and I could use the space. Before I start dismantling it, I thought you might like to go through the bottles and pick out those you’d like.”

“My goodness. Are you sure?”

She nodded. “If you don’t take them, someone else will. I’ll keep a few, and what remains I’ll either sell or give away.”

“That’s extremely generous of you. Wait ’til I tell Andrew.”

“Bring him with you when you come up. We can make a day of it. Lunch and a wine tasting.”

“It sounds delightful. When he comes back we’ll set a date. You won’t have to ask him twice.”

Kingston picked up his water glass, draining what little was left in it as Amanda started to rummage in her purse. “You mentioned two things,” he said.

“Yes. The other has to do with Charlie. I want you to meet him,” she said, appearing to have found what she was looking for.

Who on earth was Charlie? he wondered. Perhaps she’d hired a gardener—she’d talked about that possibility. It couldn’t be a new boyfriend, surely?

She closed her purse, looked up at him, and slid a small photo across the table. “Here,” she said. “He’s two months old.”

Kingston was looking at a close-up of a black puppy with its tongue hanging out.

“You’ll love him. He’s adorable. I got him from the animal shelter last week—part Lab, part sheepdog.”

Kingston grinned. “Well done. I can’t wait to meet him. That reminds me, I should return your Pet Tag.”

“No, you hang on to it, as a keepsake. He already has the old-fashioned kind.”

Kingston handed her the photo and leaned back, measuring his next words carefully.

“Amanda,” he said, pausing, “I want you to know … to know how much I’ve admired your courage and composure during these last horrendous weeks. There’s no point in dwelling on the past, other than to think about the irony of it: Were it not for all that misery, we’d never have met.”

He waited for her to say something, but all she did was return his gaze with an amused look, as if sympathizing with his struggle for words.

Kingston shifted in his seat, wondering whether to continue. “Maybe that didn’t come out right. What I’m trying to say—”

“You don’t have to say anything, Lawrence,” she interrupted, shaking her head. “It won’t change anything. We survived, didn’t we? And that’s all that matters.”

“Yes, I suppose it is.”

“I’ll go on loving and missing Tristan, and being forever thankful for what you’ve done. As for the future, I’m going to do my best to erase all thought of these last wretched weeks and, as the cliché goes, simply get on with my life.” She stopped herself, as though wondering whether to leave it at that, then continued. “There’s one more thing I’d like to say, and then we’ll drop the whole thing before we both become mawkish. And that would be embarrassing.”

Kingston nodded.

“I’d like it if we could remain friends. As you know, I don’t have too many, and at least you’ll have seniority—I mean that in a positive sense, of course,” she finished with a mischievous grin.

“In that case, I accept.”

“That makes me very happy.”

Kingston smiled and leaned back. “For a single rose can be my garden … a single friend, my world.”

“That’s nice. Did you make that up?”

“No. I stole it.”

Ready with the coffee, Andrew could hear their laughter from the kitchen.